I have just finished building a HTPC. I am using it for Media Center exclusively. I have read all the great posts on the improvements in Windows 7 MCE and have decided to make the jump. However, I am trying to decide between using Win 7 32 or 64. I ran Vista 64 MC and it sucked. I had nothing but codec issues getting downloaded video to work. Is that still the case? I would like to use 64 because of the memory and processor I have.

I recently decided try Windows 7 x64 RTM on my primary media center. While my experience was much better than when I did the same with Vista as it relates to drivers and codecs, the overall experience wasn't great. Granted, my hardware's not as beefy as yours - I have a dual-core Athlon and 2GB of RAM. I found that the overall responsiveness of the computer (dedicated to media center) in both native and extender modes to be sluggish. I went back to x86 yesterday, and my media center is back to being snappy again. Based on that experience, I'd recommend x86 for media center.

For the record, I am running Windows 7 x64 on my laptop which has 4GB of RAM, and I'm seeing about the same performance as I did x86 on the same hardware.

That's not definitive I know, but gives you another real-world data point.

Pete

dajota

2009-08-13, 09:59 PM

In my experience the OS functions work great in x64, 3rd party apps sometimes behave in strange ways. There are some great 3rd party apps that extend the function of the mediacenter that may not work under x64. You only have 4GB of ram, so your wasting less than 1 GB with x86 anyway.

lunear

2009-08-14, 04:45 PM

You may use x64, with K-lite-codec package 64bit, and the system should work fine. However, configuring the codecs and filters might be difficult if you have no experience.

Another problem is WIN 7 still doesn't support HDTV OTA in Canada. And cracking it seems too difficult. So I would like to suggest you stick with Vista.

If you wanna play movies, XBMC is best choice. No need to configure much, and you may play almost all popular format media files.

redzone

2009-08-14, 04:52 PM

i use win 64 bit without any issues. just set your regoin to the US and the Media center works without any issues.

TorontoColin

2009-08-14, 05:08 PM

Another problem is WIN 7 still doesn't support HDTV OTA in Canada. And cracking it seems too difficult. So I would like to suggest you stick with Vista.